


Without Artifice

by Laylah



Category: Vagrant Story
Genre: Amputation, Bathing/Washing, Community: kink_bingo, M/M, Service Submission
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-13
Updated: 2009-11-13
Packaged: 2017-10-02 15:11:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laylah/pseuds/Laylah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He is slender and elegantly formed, every piece of him in perfect proportion to the others, save those pieces that are gone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Without Artifice

They stop for the night in one of the sad, struggling hamlets that dot Valendia's roads, where the power plays of dukes and cardinals are too abstract to hold anyone's attention in a season of sick flocks and failing crops. Sydney has laid a glamor on them, so deftly and with so little fanfare that Hardin didn't notice when it began. It leaves them unremarkable -- still handsome, for Sydney is too vain to disguise himself otherwise, but his hair is dark, not platinum, and his arms are flesh, not silver.

He asks for supper to be brought to them in their room, and for a bath to be drawn before then. The innkeeper grumbles until he sees the color of their coin, but proves remarkably quick to change his tune. And small wonder; for the gold Sydney lays out carefully on the old oak bar, he could buy enough ale to keep the tavern in business all winter.

Their room is the best the inn has to offer, for what that accolade is worth. Hardin sheds his pack, his traveling cloak, and hesitates only a moment before he asks: "Will you want me to attend you in the bath?"

Despite the glamor, the amused curve of Sydney's smile is familiar enough. "I could choose no-one better," he says.

Heat floods Hardin's face, and even if the glamor did him the kindness of disguising it, that would do nothing to keep it from Sydney's notice.

The bath is prepared admirably quickly, and outside assistance dismissed; Hardin cannot be certain whether he sees relief or disappointment on the face of the serving girl when Sydney tells her he will require no further services. The glamor evaporates like morning dew once they have the bathing room to themselves.

Hardin removes his shirt and sets it aside; no sense in soaking his traveling clothes. "Shall I assist you?" he asks.

"Please," Sydney says, smiling. His claws chime together gently as he gestures to his clothing. No doubt he could find some way to manage on his own -- there is little he cannot convince the Dark to do -- but it seems to please him to know how much devotion he has at his command.

Hardin kneels, removing Sydney's boots carefully. Sydney steadies himself with one cool silver palm on the bare skin of Hardin's shoulder, claws held carefully away from skin. This is not a night for bleeding, for the savage brightness of those claws' cuts. It is a quieter ritual they perform now. Hardin reaches for the laces of Sydney's trousers, peels the leather down off the narrow arch of Sydney's hips. His mouth waters at the heady scent of leather and musk and magic, the combination that is Sydney's alone. Sydney's cock stirs at the attention; Hardin forces himself to look up.

"Do I stop here?" he asks.

Sydney shakes his head. "After that swamp?" he says. "I want to feel clean again."

"Of course," Hardin says, though the muck of the swamp refused to cling to Sydney even while they actually marched through it. He rises so he can reach the thin cords that bind Sydney's silver arms to each other and to their purpose. It is rare for Sydney to remove them without cause, and more rare for him to do so when their surroundings are -- relatively speaking -- not defensible. Hardin unhooks the cord, unwinds it from around Sydney's throat. The arms stay where they are, but when he reaches for the left one it comes away easily in his hands.

His stomach lurches a little at how simple it is, and he thinks he sees a flicker of discomfort cross Sydney's face. He has never dared to ask what it feels like. "You are certain?" he asks.

Sydney reaches up with his right hand and strokes Hardin's cheek with the backs of his claws. "You need not hesitate so," he says.

"I will try," Hardin answers. It is all he can promise. He sets the left arm aside carefully and reaches for the right. This time he doesn't let himself stop to look before he sets down the silver arm with its mate. They are beautiful things, works of art the equal of which no man could craft; they were gifts of the Dark, which power is beyond human artifice much as the flame of dragons is beyond that of the hearth.

"You torment yourself needlessly," Sydney says, when Hardin is slow to turn back again. "Neither of us is an innocent here."

"I should not," Hardin begins.

"What are should and should not, compared with will and will not?" Sydney asks. Maddeningly calm, pleased with himself. "Look at me."

There is no real compulsion in it, not this time, but Hardin obeys as quickly as if it were, so eager to be commanded to indulge his weakness.

Sydney stands bare now, more naked than most men will ever be, his skin and his scars both on display. He is slender and elegantly formed, every piece of him in perfect proportion to the others, save those pieces that are gone. When the Dark took his arms, it was not gentle. The stumps at his shoulders are ragged, the scars twisted and raised, as though his flesh was not cut away but bitten.

It makes Hardin queasy to look on him like this, without artifice, but what he feels is nothing so simple as revulsion; the horror at Sydney's loss twines uncomfortably with the desire to touch, to feel that vulnerability in his hands -- and overlaying _that_ is the certainty that for Sydney even this is nothing like true weakness, and the knowledge that all of his tangled responses are as plain as any catechism for Sydney to read.

"What are you waiting for?" Sydney asks. His eyes rake insolently down to the bulge in Hardin's trousers, then flick back up again. "The water will grow cold."

He turns away, stepping over the edge and into the tub with preternatural grace -- what need has he for limbs to balance him, when he has magic to serve him as faithfully as an ordinary man's hands? Hardin strips awkwardly, listening to the soft murmur of Kildean as Sydney coaxes the bathwater to steam invitingly.

Water sloshes over the edge of the tub when Hardin steps into the bath. It's warm enough to be almost scalding, warm enough to chase away the chill in his bones from the coming winter and the unwelcoming countryside. He sinks into the water, grateful for its luxury, letting his muscles steep for a few moments in simple pleasure.

When he opens his eyes, Sydney is watching him, wearing a smile that looks equal parts amused and fond. "That's much better, isn't it?" he asks.

"It is," Hardin admits. "Thank you."

"Come here if you would thank me," Sydney says. He shouldn't be able to look so at ease, so comfortable. Hardin's eyes keep returning to his shoulders, to those points of violent terminus.

In his mind's eye he can abruptly see himself leaning down to press his lips to those scars. He startles, water splashing.

"Sydney!" he protests.

"If you keep refusing, I'm going to be insulted," Sydney says calmly.

Hardin looks down. In the shadowed depths of the water he cannot tell if Sydney is aroused, as he is.

_You could if you were closer_, Sydney's voice says in his mind, and he is uncertain whether it is truly Sydney speaking or simply that he gives Sydney's voice to his own unprincipled imagination.

This battle for self-restraint is lost, in any case. He slides closer to Sydney in the tub, reaching for the wash cloth draped over its edge. "You wished for assistance," he says.

"Please," Sydney says.

The cloth is rough and the soap coarse, but Sydney arches and purrs appreciatively as though they're the luxuries of a duke's palace. Hardin washes his chest, his stomach, his back; his skin turns rosy with the attention, and his cock is thickening between his legs when Hardin reaches it. He rocks into the touch just enough to make it plain that he intends to take advantage, standing up so that Hardin can reach to bathe him all over.

"You've missed a spot," he says when he sinks into the water again. "Or rather, two." He looks down at his left shoulder.

"Forgive me," Hardin says. He tries to be gentle as he takes the wash cloth to the knot of scar. He can feel himself trembling, unable to calm this storm of conflicting responses, horror and protectiveness and desire. The cloth is too rough; he sets it aside and lathers his hands, uses them to wash the blunt stumps of Sydney's shoulders.

"You punish yourself too much, my friend," Sydney murmurs. "I am not ashamed of what I have traded to the Dark." He shifts his weight, slides closer, traps one of Hardin's thighs between his own. "And you mean me no discourtesy, do you?"

"Never," Hardin says. Sydney bites his collarbone, quick and sharp, and his cock jumps.

"Then stop hesitating," Sydney says, and the Dark lends weight to his voice: Hardin _could_ resist him, but it would take an effort of will, and his hips arch before he's even thought about it.

"Sydney," he says, as much protest as he can bring himself to voice.

Sydney leans against him, slender and fey, deceptively fragile in appearance beside Hardin's strength and wholeness. "Do not make me keep asking," he says. It might as easily be a request as a command.

Hardin reaches down to pull Sydney closer. He has to arch his back, and pres Sydney down against him, but the water buoys them up, makes the position tolerable, and Sydney's cock is unmistakably hard when it brushes Hardin's own. Sydney rubs his cheek against Hardin's shoulder, catlike, and hums in contentment at his victory.

"Like this," Hardin says, half a question, one arm wrapped around Sydney's back and the other hand sliding down between them to trap their cocks together. His hands are broad enough that he can hold them both in one. Sydney's probably never would have been, even had he not traded them for the blades of his claws.

"Yes," Sydney murmurs, "touch me," and the simplicity of the demand, the _starkness_ of it, takes Hardin's breath away. He cannot touch himself. The feel of hands on skin --

Hardin wraps his hand around their cocks and strokes deliberately, firmly. The water slows him, but Sydney shivers over him and he thinks that will not matter. He has wanted this since he first touched Sydney's skin, needed it since he laid Sydney's silver limbs aside. Sydney writhes against him and Hardin slides his free hand up, over Sydney's back, to find his shoulder and the roughness of scar. Sydney makes a sound when he touches it, soft and haunting, and Hardin shudders. His fingers close, tighter than he meant them to; Sydney trembles, trapped close against him, breath ragged, and Hardin surrenders, letting himself spill into the space between them.

He would pull back after that, save that when he tries to move, Sydney says, "Wait."

Hardin stops. "I thought," he says, and flushes hotter despite the heat of the bath. It has never come easily to him, to speak of what they do. "I would...offer you my mouth."

Sydney shakes his head. "I want your hands," he says. He twines his legs with Hardin's and flexes, pushing his cock into Hardin's grip. It seems such a simple request, but the weight of it is plain.

"Of course," Hardin says. His voice is hoarse. He reaches down, keeps one hand curled around the shaft of Sydney's cock and uses the other to cup his balls; if it's touch that Sydney wants, then he'll gladly provide. He strokes, teases, makes as much of it as he can, and Sydney straddles his thigh and rides him, hips rocking, fair skin flushed. The tension builds not only in Sydney's body but in the air around them, crackling, pulling tight with his need until it becomes unbearable, until Hardin breathes, "Please," and Sydney arches into a climax whose pleasure echoes through Hardin's flesh as well.

He sags against Hardin in its aftermath, smiling faintly as he collapses; Hardin catches him, holds him carefully until he calms. These moments of trust, of silence, seem at times more precious than the desperate need that comes before.

After a few long moments, Sydney stirs, arching his back as though he would stretch his arms over his head. "I tire of keeping the water warm," he says. "Do you suppose our gracious host has our supper prepared?"

"It seems likely," Hardin says. He lets go, offering one hand at Sydney's waist for balance to help him out of the tub. He follows, ignoring the chill of the air and reaching for the towels that have been laid out for them. "I must admit I'm looking forward to it, after such a long day."

"Not so long as it could be, at this time of year," Sydney says. He looks up at Hardin and smiles, coquettish and sly. "We'll have a longer night ahead of us, after all."


End file.
